I had Smallworld pre-ordered and managed to play several games when I picked up my copy at my FLGS. I love the game. I hope that they come up with an expansion that will have more races, powers, new board maps and perhaps even new terrain types.

Minotaurs (4/9): Your Minotaurs may conquer not empty Regions at a cost 1 less Minotaur token than normal. A minimum of 1 Minotaur token is still required.

Centaurs (6/11): Your Centaurs may conquer any Hill or Farmland Region with 1 less Centaur token than normal. A minimum of 1 Centaur token is still required.

Vampires (4/15): During your Troop Redeployment take 1 new Vampire token from the storage tray for every race token you sent to the storage tray through conquest this turn, and add it to the troops you redeploy at the end of your turn. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, you do not receive any additional tokens.

Summoners (5/10): During your Troop Redeployment take 1 Elemental token from the storage tray for every Magic Region your Summoners occupy, and add it to the troops you redeploy at the end of your turn. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, you do not receive any additional tokens. Elemental tokens count as Summoner race tokens. At any time, if an Elemental token is occupying a region by itself, it is immediately returned to the storage tray. There are 10 Elemental Tokens in the tray.

Kobolds (12/17): Your Kobolds must conquer all Regions at a cost of 1 extra Kobold token than normal.

Zombies (5/10): When the enemy conquers one of your Regions, substitute one of the enemy tokens with a Zombie token from the tray. This Zombie token is taken in hand and is redeployed as normal (see Enemy Losses & Withdrawals, p.4).

Dryads (5/10): When your Dryads conquer a Region, you may place a Forest token in the Region. Regions with a Forest token are considered Forest Regions instead of Swamp, Farm, or Hill. This ability cannot be used in Mountains. Forest tokens remain in play until all Dryad race tokens are removed from the board.

Changelings (6/11): At the beginning of your turn, you may choose an Active race. The Changeling race ability becomes a duplicate of the chosen Active race.

Pixies (4/15): During your Troop Redeployment, take 1 new Pixie token from the storage tray for every 2 Magic Regions that you occupy, and add it to the troops you redeploy at the end of your turn. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, you do not receive any additional tokens.

Powers

Diseased (2): When the enemy conquers one of your Regions, place a Pestilence token at the Region that was conquered. Regions with Pestilence tokens cost 1 less race token to conquer. A minimum of 1 race token is still required. Pestilence tokens are removed from a Region if it is conquered or abandoned.

Thieving (3): When your race conquers a Region, you may take 1 Victory coin from the player who's active race controlled the Region.

Villainous (4): At the beginning of your turn, place each of your 2 Villains in 2 different Regions occupied by an enemy player. At the end of your turn, if you occupy these Regions, collect 1 bonus Victory coin. Regions containing Villain tokens may be attacked irregardless of special powers or tokens by any player (ie: Hero token, Dragon token, Holes-in-the-Ground, Diplomat alliance).

Immortal (0): Regions that you occupy cannot be conquered.

Guerilla (2): When the enemy conquers one of your Regions, at the end of the current player's turn, you may redeploy your Race tokens in hand to another empty Region(s) on the map instead of Regions that are still occupied by your race (see Enemy Losses & Withdrawals, p.4).

Freedom Fighting (4): When you conquer an enemy player occupied Region containing a Lost Tribe symbol, immediately take 1 new race token from the storage tray and add it to your race tokens in hand. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, you do not receive any additional tokens.

Pacifist (5): You may conquer any adjacent empty Region with only 1 Race token. When you conquer not empty Regions, you must send a Race token in hand back to the tray, if you cannot, then you may not continue conquesting.

Bribing (1): Once per turn, you may conquer a Region by substituting one of your opponent's Active tokens with one of your own taken from the storage tray and giving the opponent 3 Victory coins from your personal stores. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, then you cannot conquer a new Region in this way. The token you replace does not have to be the only race token in its Region, but that Region must be adjacent to one of your race's. Remaining enemy race tokens are redeployed normally (see Enemy Losses & Withdrawals, p.4).

Shapeshifting (3): At the end of your turn, you may choose an Active race. Your Active race ability becomes a duplicate of the chosen Active race.

Stealthy (2): When a Region you occupy becomes the target of a conquest, you may immediately initiate a Troop Redeployment of your Active Race tokens. This ability may only be used once per turn.

Mercenary (3): At the start of your turn, you may return 2 points worth of Victory coins to the tray in order to add a Race token of your Active Race to your hand. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, you cannot receive an additional token. This ability may only be used once per turn.

Exploding (5): Once per turn you may return an Active Race token from your hand to the tray to return a token on an adjacent Region to the tray. (ie: Race token, Mountain, Fortress, Troll Lair, Encampment)

Mountainous (5): Yor race can conquer mountain regions for 1 less token and cost 1 more to be counquered in a mountain region even in decline. A minimum of one token is still needed to conquer a region.

I like the preceding Mountain power but I would make it a 5

Stealing (3): At the start of your turn you may trade this power with any other power from an Active race or from a race in the line of races to be chosen. Remove all extra tokens that may go with this power from the board and you may now start to use them.
If you do not use this power and your race is still Acitve, steal/take one victory point from the bank at the end of your turn.
If you steal Seafaring, the previous race does not lose its tokens from conquered water areas, but you may conquer them at the appropriate ammount.

Frogmen (7), 12 Tokens: Frogmen may treat any one adjacent region (including the central aquatic region) as if they occupy it for the purposes of conquering other regions.

Balance: Their ability is a weaker form of Flying, however they can get to central regions quicker than normal races or alternatively jump over the typical outer defenses of their opponents. If paired up with Flying, they still have an impressive 7 armies. They could possibly go down to 6 but then they would probably be a little worse than Tritons/Giants, especially if they did get the flying ability.

Theme: Hopping around is what frogs do! Since there is no rule of having to keep your race together in a contiguous way, like Vinci, I thought it would be a neat idea.

Hunters (6), 10 Tokens: At the start of your turn, name a Race. Your Hunters may conquer all Regions containing the named Race at a cost of 1 less Hunter token than normal. A minimum of 1 Hunter token is still required. The Lost Tribe is not considered a Race.

Balance: A simple ability but excellent to use against players that have been harassing you throughout the game or for large clusters of weak units like Amazons. Tritons/Giants have 6 tokens and get a -1 to conquer many regions and probably more than the Hunter, so I think it's balanced as is.

Theme: Hunters track their prey and are typically knowledgeable about them giving them the advantage. Since the 10 rounds probably spanning many hundreds of years (rise and falls of Civilizations take time) it makes sense for them to change what they hunt based on what's around. When I thought of picking races to kill, that screamed D&D Ranger to me but in the end Hunter seemed more fitting. Plus it's fun to say: I am a Giant Hunter!!

Mummies (6), 11 Tokens: Whenever a player conquers or is conquered by Active Mummies, that player must take a Curse token. Any player with a Curse token may not use the reinforcement die when trying to conquer territories. When a player puts a race in decline they may discard their Curse token. Curses remain even when Mummies are in decline.

Balance: This doesn't outright help a Mummy player because if someone attacks you they only then get a Curse, which won't affect the player until next round. Even without a Curse the person may not have rolled high enough to conquer a given area, this just completely takes away any chance. This benefit not only affects you but all of the cursed players opponents. It's not overly horrible either because you can attack Mummies and then go into decline the next round and lose your Curse token. This Race absolutely wrecks anyone with the Berserk ability but I think is balanced overall and could produce some diplomacy in games.

Theme: Mummy's are just known for Curses, so I thought it would be a good idea to have an effect that lingers anyone that interacts with a player. Most abilities have a benefit to the owner of that Race, but a Curse should be a detriment to one person, which gives everyone an advantage over them. It's thematic in that the Curse never goes away (ie a Dying Curse) even when the Mummy is gone. I think it's also thematic in that when a person declines their current Race (ie starting to attack with a new race) that race isn't affected by the Curse.

Cultists (6), 11 Tokens: Anytime a region with a Cultist is conquered, the conquering player must return to the tray one of their Race tokens that would normally enter the newly conquered region. To conquer a region containing an Active Race token, the Cultist player must return one of their Race tokens to the tray.

Balance: This is an offensive and defensive ability in one. I think I have the number of tokens right. I choose 6 because in the late game, there may not be many places for them to maneuver without taking heavy casualties. It is a powerful in that even the Elves, when attacking Cultists, cannot hope to survive against Cthulhu unscathed. The Elves can feel free to run when being conquered however and not lose a race token.

Theme: For a Cultist to be able to have combat ability they must sacrifice one of their own to be able to summon ancient evils to allow them wreak havoc upon new regions and survive against being attacked. This is portrayed by it's ability. They also like to prey on the weak. In the case of the Lost Tribe and declined races they must still sacrifice a Cultist but since they are weak the Cultists have been able to bend them into joining them, resulting in a net loss of 0 tokens.

Ghosts (5), 10 Tokens: When you try to conquer a region, ignore all Race and Lost Tribe tokens for purposes of defense. You do not ignore Structure or Mountain tokens for defense. If successful all of the opponents Race tokens have to move to the same adjacent empty region or a friendly occupied region. Race tokens must match in friendly regions. If there is no empty/friendly regions for the opponent move, they pick up all of their Active Race tokens for redeployment or in the case of declined Race tokens they are returned to the tray. Lost Tribe tokens have to move to the same adjacent empty region or a region containing at least one Lost Tribe token by the player to the left or it's removed to the tray.

Balance: Pushing your opponents pieces is really good in that you don't need as many Ghosts to gain control a region (especially if your opponent would get bonus points from that region). It would also be interesting to push multiple Lost Tribe tokens together to increase defense in a region your opponent would consider valuable. Trapping declined/lost tribe tokens will result in casualties but if that's not possible, then all opponents/Lost Tribes are essentially Elves in addition to their normal race, even when the race is in decline. Trapping declined Ghouls could result in many casualties.

Theme: Ghosts scare things and if people are scared they generally run and would be unable to defend anything. I feel the mechanisms and theme go hand-in-hand.

Robots (5), 11 tokens: At the beginning of your turn, if there is no Factory token on the board, place one in an unoccupied or Robot occupied region of your choice. At the beginning of your turn, if there is a Factory token on a region with 3 or more Robot tokens, you may add 1 Robot token from the supply to your hand for conquering. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, you do not receive any additional tokens. A Factory augments your Region's defense by 1. Remove the Factory if you abandon the Region or when an enemy conquers it.

Balance: So they get one token less than Elves and Elves can essentially gain (well, not lose) more than one token per round depending on the number of times they're attacked. Skeletons also have more tokens to start and can possibly get more than one in a round. The benefit of Robots is that if they aren't attacked much and have a low numbered special ability, they can theoretically have more tokens available to them than Elves. In addition, Robots are able to fortify one area with a Factory which will typically have 3 robots on it anyway, which is useful when they have a VP special power. They also have one region that's harder to destroy after they're in decline because the factories only go away when abandoned or conquered. They're kind of a mixture of Elves and Trolls.

Theme: Robots building robots, thematic, no? 'Robots don't belong in a fantasy setting!' you say. Warforged are basically Robots in D&D which is a fantasy setting. Having Robots on a Factory to create more Robots just clicks... and beeps At worst, you could just rename them Golems or Homunculi and change the Factory to a Wizards Tower.

Yeti (5): You may conquer any Mountain region with 1 less Race token than normal. A minimum of 1 token is still required. If a Yeti conquers a mountain region containing one or more Active Race tokens, any race token that would normally go back to the tray is placed in the region with the Yeti token(s) instead but is flipped to the declined side. At the beginning of your turn for every declined Race token in a region co-existing with one or more Yeti tokens, you gain 1 Victory Point and then that declined Race token is is returned to it's owners tray. After this, choose if you are going to continue conquering or decline your Race.

Clarifications:

- Co-existing declined Race tokens does augments your Region's defense by 1 even if the owner of that declined race token is going to try and move in with Active tokens.

- Should the owner of a declined Race token co-existing with Yeti's conquer that region with their active Race tokens, the Yeti player will pick up his Yeti Race token(s) and place one in the tray and hold on the remainder for redeployment. The declined Race token stays in decline on the region with the Active Race tokens.

- Should a non-Yeti player conquer a region with Yeti's and an in decline Race token of another player, the Yeti player will pick up his Yeti Race token(s) and place one in the tray and hold on the remainder for redeployment. The declined Race token is placed back in the tray.

- The owner of a declined Race token co-existing with Yeti's will gain a Victory Point at the end of their turn.

Balance: So basically we have a possible delayed bonus VP for Yeti's and the ability to take Mountains with one less Race token. VP Races typically have 5 tokens (Wizards/Humans/Orcs) but they also have the ability to conquer a region with one less Race token, so that's over powered right? My logic is that it's not guaranteed they will get a VP because it requires someone to be in a Mountain. People can avoid taking Mountains to try and stop Yeti's from getting bonus VP's (just like people avoid having 1 Unit with Sorcerers around). Declined Races on Mountains are not affected by the Yeti's VP engine. Elves are immune to the ability. In addition, assuming the player goes before the Yeti player, that player would still get a VP for the region that's co-existing with the Yeti's. Normally wouldn't if a someone else kicked them out of the region. Play testing may reveal that 4 units would be fine but I would start play testing with 5 initially.

Theme: Yeti's are the kings of mountains and snowy regions, so I thought it natural that they would get bonuses for conquering such regions. I think it works out thematically that rather than just killing an enemy unit, they take them hostage and slowly digested over a turn, but also has the opportunity to be saved, however unlikely. As for the declined Race token acting as defense thematically, I see it as the Yeti's fiercely protecting it's food, but it's just to maintain rules consistency that piece 1 of cardboard = 1 defense.

Elementals (3), 16 Tokens: Once per turn, you may skip your conquering phase. If you do, you may choose one single region occupied by one or more Elementals. Every region adjacent to the chosen region which contains an opponents Race token or a Lost Tribe token, will have one of these tokens removed. Place any non-Elf tokens removed this way are placed back into the storage tray. Elves may redeploy any tokens removed in this way at the end of the Elemental players turn. If there was only 1 Race token or 1 Lost Tribe in an affected region, you may now place one of your Race tokens from the tray into the now empty region. You may only place a maximum of 3 Elemental tokens this way each turn, so if there are more than 3 regions that you could place tokens, you pick which 3 regions the new tokens will be placed. If there are no more tokens in the storage tray, then you cannot place a Race token in this way. Regions containing Elementals and unoccupied regions are unaffected.

Balance: This was a hard one for me to make and probably the race I'm most unsure about in terms of balance. I worry that 3 tokens may be too few, especially if combined with a low token special ability. Too many wouldn't be good because the ability is powerful. Even though the ability is powerful depending on the board situation you may be better off just conquering. At first I didn't have cap but after looking at the board it would be severely overpowered. In ways I consider Elementals less powerful than Sorcerers because even when paired with Flying they still have to conquer a tactically good region first and next round that they can use their ability. This may give other races an opportunity to redeploy so that the Elementals will at least not get to expands despite the damage they could potentially do. With this Race, I tried to design them so that you would actually want to keep them because they would probably get stronger over turns rather than weaker like most Races, until they hit the cap.

Theme: I think the power is fitting for a powerful being made of and in control of their specific Element. If they are Earth Elementals they would use an Earthquake. A Water Elemental would use a Tsunami. Air Elementals could use Hurricanes. Fire Elementals could cause Volcano Eruptions.

Recieve 7 and on first conquest use normal rules unless there is still some on the board. If lost tribes still on the board at your first conquest you may attack ANY adjacent region.

Bonus: you get plus one victory for every different race you kill on your turn. These tribes are tired of one race domination.

My Idea was

Starting number = 7 maybe 6

you automatically control the lost tribe tokens already on the board (assumeing any). (the large number is limited by the actual number of lost tokens so it should not get an absurd amount of tokens. )

If there are no Lost tokens already in play you get either + 1 gold and/or require one less unit to attack any square where the Lost markers are (the markers that show where to place them when placeing the map).

I have not counted out to see how many of those spots are on each map I am guessing its more then forest, hills, mines, and any other "bonus" spot. If it seems like an unfair advantage maybe you only get +1 gold for every 2 you control?

Also maybe you only get the +1 bonus if you would not normally get a bonus coin for controling that area.
For example Forest Lost would only get +1 even if the forest spot was also a Lost spot.

Firewall power : after all your conquests, you can place a "Firewall" marker in any empty (non water) region adjacent to your active race. That region cannot be conquered (but does not count for your victory points). When your next turn comes, and you keep your race active, remove the Firewall marker at the beginning of your turn and replace it after you made your conquests.
Power lost when race goes into decline.

Mountaneers power-1 token needed when attacking a mountain region.

Mopping up power-1 token when attacking a race in decline (Zombies included)

Spreading fear powerOnce during a turn, you can chase all tokens of an active race from a region adjacent to your active race : those tokens must move to an adjacent region (priority : 1) a region already containing tokens of that race, 2) an empty region). If no such retreat is possible, the player who owns the fleeing race takes them back (and redeploys them normally after the current player has finished his own redeployment).

Bribing Power:
You may use money as race tokens that go to the defeated player.
One normal race token is still needed. Money used to conquer empty or Lost Tribe territories goes back to the bank.

Balancing options:
1. You could allow or disallow the ability to be used against races in decline depending on if it needed some nerfing or not.
2. Alter the number of troops that comes with it. I imagined 3 more so than 4 armies by default.

This is a good double edged sword power i think. The power to break some strongholds on the board but is it worth the cost??

Hmm, Probably too powerful with elves though. If it was a briding RACE then elves and bribery would be mutually exclusive.

Pious (2): At the end of your first turn, you may deploy the Temple token in any region you control. The Temple augments the Region's defense by 1 (just as if you had an additional Race token stationed there). Collect 1 bonus Victory coin for that Region and each adjacent Region you occupy at turn's end. You collect the bonus Victory coins for adjacent Regions even if an enemy conquers the Region with the Temple. Remove the Temple if you are In Decline.

Some of My ideas I thought about trying. Looks like there are some similar ideas out there all ready.

Powers:

Magical (4): +1 victory from magic source regions.

Magical (5): -1 token when conquering a magic source region.

Races:

Deevil (4/9): Deevils are said to be the greatest merchants ever. It's said if you think you have got a good deal from a deevil, first count your money, then count your fingers, then count your relatives. If conquering a non empty region take a victory token, of the lowest value they have, from that player.

Centaur (5/10): -1 token needed when conquering hills and farm alnds.

Ettin (4/9): -1 token needed when conquering a region. (not sure if I should make this 3/8

Thugs/Bodyguards (5/10): Current race doesn't go into decline, Thug tokens can be added to current race tokens for attack & defense. Both special powers are available for this combination of the two races. If going into decline, BOTH thugs & the attatched race must go into decline, and follow normal in decline rules.

Robots (7/12): When attacked, the lost token may be returned on the owner's second turn from then (time to repair). -1 for attacker if attacking from ocean or sea.

As for me, anyway, there should be some race or special power that affects Mountains (destroys them or move to another region) because each other token except Mountain is not permanent movable it can be set or removed with specific rules. The only one token type - Mountains is fixed.

Another race

Fungus (6/13)
During "Ready your troops" phase take one extra fungus token for each 5 tokens you already have

Another power

Fishing
Receive one extra victory point for each coast region (region that is adjacent to the sea or lake)

Headhunter (3): Each time you conquer a region from a race that you have not conquered from before, you gain X VP where X is the number of different races from which you have conquered regions.
E.g. first you conquer an orc region and gain 1 VP, then you conquer an elf region and gain 2 VP, and the next turn you conquer a ghoul region and gain 3 VP.

Faith : allows the active race to move a mountain token from a region that is next to a region one or more of its tokens occupies at the end of his turn.
The mountain can be placed in any region adjacent to it (including the region in which the active race has one or more tokens).
A mountain region without a mountain token would be a normal region and no more a mountain.
This is possible even if the mountain's region is otherwise prohibited for attack (dragon, hobbit hole).
The mountain can be moved into the lake, thus making it a conquerable region for anybody - not only the seafaring race.
Race tokens in the previous mountain or in the new mountain region are otherwise not affected.

So, who would be tempted to have enough faith to move mountains ?

PS : this would give a definite usefullness for the mountain tokens (beside helping players count how much they need to conquer the region).

Faith : allows the active race to move a mountain token from a region that is next to a region one or more of its tokens occupies at the end of his turn.
The mountain can be placed in any region adjacent to it (including the region in which the active race has one or more tokens).
A mountain region without a mountain token would be a normal region and no more a mountain.
This is possible even if the mountain's region is otherwise prohibited for attack (dragon, hobbit hole).
The mountain can be moved into the lake, thus making it a conquerable region for anybody - not only the seafaring race.
Race tokens in the previous mountain or in the new mountain region are otherwise not affected.

So, who would be tempted to have enough faith to move mountains ?

PS : this would give a definite usefullness for the mountain tokens (beside helping players count how much they need to conquer the region).

I think this would make a great badge power. Probably a 4 token badge at that. It might work even better as a 3 token badge if you changed it to giving the race a Mustard Seed token. Once per turn the race w/ a Mustard Seed token that occupies a mountain region could move the mountain token to an adjacent region including being able to target a lake or sea region and conquer it w/ only 1 race token.

When I first heard of the game, I was under the impression the world shrank as the game went on. (It was advertised as getting too small to contain the races, the cover art even looks like it's crumbling)

I came up with an idea to represent what I thought the game was about.

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Smaller World Optional Rule: At the end of every round, there is a secret bid. Each player puts coins from their stash into their hand. All players reveal their coin tokens at once. The winning bid player discards their coins and gets to choose a land area adjacent to the ocean. That land is now in the ocean. Any race or other markers on it are destroyed. Place an
ocean marker on the space. If there is a tie for winning bid, both (all) players may destroy a land space.

The player can choose to sink a land into the ocean even if it contains tokens with 'immune' special powers (Dragon, Heroes, etc). The owning player of the 'immune' items gets to redeploy them.

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I wish I would have submitted this idea for the contest instead of others. (Although Days of Wonder wouldn't really have anything to sell,other than markers to depict new ocean spaces)

Smaller World Optional Rule: At the end of every round, there is a secret bid. Each player puts coins from their stash into their hand. All players reveal their coin tokens at once. The winning bid player discards their coins and gets to choose a land area adjacent to the ocean. That land is now in the ocean. Any race or other markers on it are destroyed. Place an
ocean marker on the space. If there is a tie for winning bid, both (all) players may destroy a land space.

The player can choose to sink a land into the ocean even if it contains tokens with 'immune' special powers (Dragon, Heroes, etc). The owning player of the 'immune' items gets to redeploy them.

I like the idea, but that makes the game a lot more imbalanced. Races such as Seafaring & Tritons become a lot less desireable as you are always worried about losing the bid & getting your land (and tokens) eliminated. Obviously this does not happen unless you lose the bid, but to have to pay more just for that right severly undercuts your points. Not to mention specific lands are now more desireable because of their distance from the water and that may potentially unbalance the balance of land abilities as well (forest, hill, humans, etc).

RacesHydras (4) :
When attempting the Conquest of any Hydras Regions, the Hydra player rolls a Reinforcement dice forcing the attacker to place the extra amount of tokens indicated by the dice to successfully conquer that Region. This capacity of growing more heads when defending stays with Hydras In Decline.

Dryads (6) (modified):
Dryads can enter the board in any forest region. Dryads treat all forests as adjacent. When conquerd in a Forest Region, you suffer no loss, withdraw all your tokens from the Forest.

Power]
River (5): With the river boats you can conquer the Lake Region (but not the 2 Sea Regions), the Swamps and any River crossed Farmland Region at 1 less token than usual. A minimum of 1 token is still required. The Lake Region is retained after going into decline.

Race: Doppleganger(?): May imitate ability of one active race on the map per turn (but not its special power). You start with the # of units of the first active race you imitate. No active races means no units, so don't pick it! Imitation power doesn't work in decline.

Ex: Imitating Kobolds at the start would give you with 11 (+ whatever # is on your special power) but each region would be required to have 2 or more tokens that turn. Next turn you would imitate someone else to keep the active tokens and eliminate this requirements.

Ex: Imitating Dwarves at the start would give you the mining bonus, but you'd only start with 3(+) units. If you picked them later, you wouldn't lose tokens.

Ex: You have Stout and imitate Ghouls. You take your turn and go into decline. You flip all the units on the map and don't eliminate stacks. However, next turn because you are in decline you cannot imitate the Ghouls so you get no attack phase, but you do keep what's on the map.

Ex: Imitating Elves would let you redeploy all your losses, but not get back what you lost previous turns.

Ex: Imitating Skeletons would let you gain a unit per every two conquered token regions.

Chameleons: Upon selecting the Chameleon race, the player is able to permanently adopt the racial power of any of the other five races on display in the race-selection column. The player places one VP chip on each race banner above the Chameleon race banner in order to select the Chameleon race (like normal), and then places one VP chip on each race banner above the adopted race banner plus two VP chips on the adopted race banner in order to select the racial power. The Chameleon race then plays exactly like the adopted race until removed from the board.

The Chameleon race will initially be paired with a special power. This special power is fixed to the Chameleon race, and the Chameleons may not adopt a different special power. Additionally, the Chameleons only adopt the racial powers and not the special powers of the desired race.

Rangers: The Rangers' racial power is that they are able to attack up to two regions away from an occupied region. Similar to flying, this allows them to bypass an enemy's defensive region and attack a more vulnerable region.

A possible balancing device for the Rangers could be to restrict their ability to withdraw. If another player conquers a Rangers' region that is not adjacent to another Rangers' region, all of the Ranger race tokens are removed and placed back into supply. If the conquered region is adjacent to a Ranger-controlled region, then (like normal) only one race token is placed into supply.

Cultists: The Cultists' special power is that they are able to select the race tokens of any other player contained in any single adjacent region and use these race tokens as their own. The conquest(s) of this "brainwashed" army are performed according to the normal rules, but conquered regions are not scored as VPs. At the end of the conquest, the "brainwashed" race tokens used to conquer are returned to their original region.

A possible balancing device for the Cultists could be to restrict the racial powers and/or the special powers of the "brainwashed" race tokens. So, for example, brainwashed Tritons would not have their advantage in attacking coastal regions.

Ideas for Special Powers

Mimicking: Operates almost identically to the Chameleons' racial power, except the selecting player has the option of choosing a special power from the five other special powers available. The player contributes the same amount of VP chips as outlined above.

It is possible to have Mimicking Chameleons. They are highly customizable, but would cost the selecting player many VP chips.

Brainwashing: Operates identically to the Cultists' racial power.

I imagine having one or the other, but not both in a game. Additionally, like the Cultists, the special power could be balanced by restricting the brainwashed race's racial and/or special powers.

I didn't know anyone had thought of a Lizardmen race until I'd looked in this thread, but this is how I envisaged them:

Lizardmen (4/18) :
At the end of your first turn, place a nest on any swamp region you control. At the start of each of your turns thereafter, you gain 1 Lizardman token for every 2 territories your Lizardmen control adjacent to your nest. The nest cannot be moved once placed. The nest is removed once Lizardmen go into decline.

This would make a very solid midgame race. Making the nest only able to go on swamps removes the issue of Seafaring making this overpowered. On the two larger boards, only 2 swamps have 6 adjacent regions, and holding 7 regions is made a bit harder with only 4 starting tokens.

The only real balance issue I could foresee is being paired with Underground - there is one swamp region with 6 regions immediately adjacent, and a cavern on it. Even then, it would take a fair number of turns (or an awesome offensive special power) to get the numbers/offense needed to hold enough regions to make it unbalanced.

I'm Michael from Israel, 24 years old.
My group and I started playing SmallWorld a couple of months ago, and fell in love with it.
I just ordered the 2 expansions (Dames and Cursed).

After thinking about it a lot, I decided about a race and a special power that felt missing from the game. Hope you'll like them.

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Race:

Ninjas (5\10): When a Ninja race token sends another ACTIVE race token back to the tray, the player who's ACTIVE race token has been sent, chooses one of his in DECLINE race tokens (if there are any), and sends it back to tray as well.

Special Power:

Gambling (5): Each time a player rolls the dice (including for BERZERK), earn victory points equal to the result.

*EDIT*
OH! Thought of another one, pretty neat as well...

A tomb of - (0): First, earn victory points equal to 10, minus the the number on the race attached to "A tomb of -". Second, place "A tomb of - " and the race attached to it into the discard pile. Lastly, end your turn, earning normal victory points from your in decline races (if any). The next turn, choose a new race and special power, and play normaly.

You are actually finding a tomb of the race, and not the race itself... A good way to get rid of a race and do a quick turn, earning victory points ranged from 0 (kobolds) to 8 (ladies), or 2 (ratman) to 7 (dwarves) without the expanions. Could be very useful for times when you still don't want to enter the board, or want to see the next race on the list...

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Well, at start I wanted "Gamblers" to be the race, and the "Ninja-" to be the special power token (as a result, we would've had Ninja-Orcs, Ninja-Skeletons, Ninja-Amazons, and of course, when we have Pirates in a future expansion, the all-mighty-Ninja-Pirates!!!), but it seems Ninjas should be the race after all, and Gambling is more of a special power.

Both complete things that felt missing from the game.

The Ninjas, who attacks from the shadows, adds the ability to get rid of declined races more easily, at the same time of getting rid of active ones. Sometimes it just feels there are too many (declined Ratman with active Amazons anyone?).

The Gambling on the other hand, adds another use for the dice, without increasing the normal rate of dice-throwing during a single game (keeping the strategic trait of SmallWorld). Also, the Gambling could be a useful counter to Berzerk, making players think if they want to roll the dice, risking another player getting victory points out of it.
Of course, this means the player who uses Gambling will try to roll the dice as much as he can, while the other players will try to avoid using it.

Leprechauns(6): When Leprechauns conquer a region with an active race, you must pay owner of active race 1 victory point. When an opponent conquer's an active Leprechaun region, that opponent must pay the Leprechaun owner 2 victory points.